Attention to the details of study design, conduct and analysis is necessary to define, improve, and maintain the quality of clinical research. By striving to design studies that are less susceptible to common biases, maintaining controls over the data collection and management stages, and using the most appropriate analyses of the data, the optometric clinical vision research community can present results that have great impact on the public health. To accomplish this the creation of the Optometry Coordinating Center is proposed. This center is directed by a clinician-scientist working in concert with an epidemiologist, a biostatistical advisory group, and a group of faculty researchers. This grant proposal will establish a consulting service to place biostatistical consultants in close contact with faculty researchers at The Ohio State University College of Optometry. It will also facilitate the development of expertise in epidemiological and biostatistical methodology and will facilitate the development of leadership in these areas. It will enable biostatistical colleagues to enhance the developing educational program in clinical research between the College of Optometry and the School of Public Health at Ohio State And, it will facilitate the development of the Optometry Coordinating Center, to establish a new site for data management and analysis for ongoing and new clinical studies in optometry and vision science. The early development of this Optometry Coordinating Center initially will be grounded in the analysis and reporting of results from the Collaborative Longitudinal Study of Ethnicity and Refractive Error (CLEERE) Study. This study is just in the process of converting from the single-center Orinda Longitudinal Study of Myopia by adding three more remote clinical sites (as of July 1, 1997). This conversion necessitates additional data management and the implementation of additional quality control measures. It will provide an ideal "training ground" for the establishment of the Optometry Coordinating Center poised to serve other clinical studies in the future. As the Optometry Coordinating Center becomes established, existing collaborations within The Ohio State University College of Optometry and with outside institutions will be strengthened and new collaborations will be developed. This will allow the Optometry Coordinating Center to become involved from the very beginning and at various stages of the research process, from design and implementation to analysis, to create a much- needed resource within the field of optometric clinical vision research.